Did Ukraine win the elections on Sunday? We are not talking about Zelensky, his entourage, or about Igor Kolomoisky, whom the press described as ruling Ukraine from the shadows and an exponent of the Ukrainian mafia similar to Poroshenko… We’re talking about the Ukrainians. About those who have grown tired of misery, empty words, theft, fraud, inequity, promises, expectations…

Ukraine surprises again. Volodymyr Zelensky sets a second record in the struggle for power in Ukraine this year. In April, Zelensky won the presidential elections with over 74 percent of the vote, ahead of the former Ukrainian leader and well-known oligarch Petro Poroshenko. On July 21, Zelensky’s party Servant of the People won the early parliamentary elections with nearly 44 percent of the vote, followed by the Opposition Platform — For Life with only 13 percent. The latter stands for a rapprochement with Russia.

Poroshenko’s European Solidarity got third place, the Batkivshchyna party of the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko came in fourth place and in fifth – the Voice party of famous rock musician Svyatoslav Vakarchuk. He, like “Servant of the People,” is pleading for the renewal of the political class in Ukraine.

None of the older parties or nationalist formations were found on the list of the Ukrainian electorate’s preferred candidates. Three of the five parties that made it to Parliament are new parties. The Ukrainian media explains this by quoting several political analysts who believe war and corruption led to this development. Ukrainians want peace and stability. The parties that have governed Ukraine so far have offered neither of the two.

People are tired of the war and corruption that displaces them from their homes, forcing them to take the road to any one of the four corners of the world. Today, Zelensky and his party have become the only hope for Ukrainians that believe in a better Ukraine.

“I congratulate all of you. It is a good, powerful and symbolic result. Seventy five percent would have been better, but we, anyway, thank you for your support,” said Zelensky after announcing the results of the elections. Through these early elections (the ordinary ones were to happen in October), we “launched a challenge to the system,” and we promise “to bring to the governance new people ready to make changes” and to “clean up the country of corruption,” Zelensky promised.

Will it happen? Will he succeed? For the time being, the “Servant of the People” needs a partnership with someone from the other four parliamentary parties to be able to form a decision-making majority and to govern. Which party or parties will it be? Immediately after the elections, Poroshenko said that he will remain in opposition and hence falls out of the equation. Tymoshenko and Vakarchuk have not yet made any statements in this regard. Instead, the pro-Russian Bloc Opposition Platform — For Life has implied that it could cooperate with Zelensky’s party on issues that are in the interests of the pro-Russian voters.

This is almost the exact scenario happening in Chișinău. Here, the pro-Russian socialist party, with the highest number of seats in parliament, has accepted an alliance with their opponents of Euro-Western orientation, united by the idea of ​​dismissing an oligarchic regime that monopolized the state. In the case of Ukraine, we have the opposite situation – a pro-Western oriented party could make a deal with a pro-Russian party with the same goal in mind: to fight corruption, reform the political class, and de-oligarchize Ukraine. This alliance is not the only possibility. Zelensky has an alternative to the pro-Russian option: Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna and Valarchuk’s Voice, with more than 13 percent of the vote. Together with the presidential party they can make a functional parliamentary majority.

Did Ukraine win the elections on Sunday? We are not talking about Zelensky, his entourage, or about Igor Kolomoisky, whom the press described as ruling Ukraine from the shadows and an exponent of the Ukrainian mafia similar to Poroshenko… We’re talking about the Ukrainians. About those who have grown tired of misery, empty words, theft, fraud, inequity, promises, expectations…

In April, the Ukrainians got out to vote massively (around 80 percent). They voted for an apolitical president, convinced that he is “a man of the people.” Three months later, the Ukrainians voted for Zelensky’s party in Parliament, only by 43.9 percent. Electoral participation decreased to 60 percent, which reminds us that people can quickly lift you into glory and just as quickly let you fall down when you can’t handle it. It is curious, if Zelensky would not have dissolved Parliament and the elections would not have been rushed (to take place 3 months earlier), what would the results be? In whose favor? Zelensky, like others, was very generous in his promises (and in the case of national minorities, he even lied), so that support for him remains unchanged.

On the topic of the results of last Sunday’s elections, the leader of the Russian Liberal Democrats, V. Zhirinovsky, said that Zelensky will not be able to change things in Ukraine. New people will not be brought in by pushing buttons. Ukraine will be further ruined, new elections will be held in less than two years, the nationalist parties will come to power, Ukraine will break into pieces, after which Russia will deal with its reunification and assimilation.

The European Union has expressed a completely different view on the situation. The E.U. sees “a strong mandate for reform,” said a spokesperson for the E.U.’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini.

Brussels treats Ukraine with the same hope for succeeding it treated Moldova after the February 24 parliamentary elections. Kyiv and Chișinău are both dealing with the same major issues: the Russian occupation of Transnistria and Donbas, regional peace and stability and the de-oligarchization of the two countries. The difference is that Moldova’s President Dodon, unlike Zelensky, is part of this oligarchic and occupation regime. And secondly: through last Sunday’s early elections, Zelensky took Ukraine out of a possible parliamentary crisis (Russia’s involvement in negotiating a parliamentary majority), while in Chișinău, early elections remain in Dodon’s hand like Damocles’ sword over Moldova.

Petru Grozavu,